Newly diagnosed

Hi MickG

Welcome to the forum, Gleason 6 is nice and low so hopefully you will tick along nicely without too much intervention at this point? what did your consultant offer as treatment? Sorry, I don't know anything about the means tested bit, but I'm saying hello. 

L

Thanks for the reply Barry. I am meeting with the consultant on Tuesday but the urology nurse indicated it would be Active Surveillance to monitor PSA levels. 

I think in that case you will be fine and it shouldn't effect your life too much, it sounds like it will be slow growing and you will have many years ahead of you before it becomes a problem. ( not that I know obviously as I'm not medical) but watching and waiting is a good place to be if you have PC. 

Best wishes L

Hi Mick,

The only non means tested benefit for disabilities would be Attendance Allowance. You would need to prove that you were unable to perform certain tasks for your day to day living. My husband gets it at the lower level and it can be used to spend on anything you like i.e. a gardener, cleaner, barbers etc.  It is quite a lengthy form and we qualified as my husband (78) has several other health issues and is not fully functioning without help.

If you are suffering from incontinence either from the pc itself or perhaps any future treatments, then you should be able to get pads supplied free. You would need to speak to your surgery to find out what is available in your area.

Other than that, I think everything else is means tested. Hope this helps.

Regards

Gina

Thanks for the very useful information Gina. Much appreciated. 

Good Morning Mick

When I was diagnosed i could not cope at all, in fact  I found  everything so stressful I walked out of work and spent some time with no money coming in. I call into the local Macmillan Centre at my local hospital (newly opened that day and I was the first client) the lady in the office gave me loads of advise and a telephone number for a Macmillan benefits advisor, the lady in question was absolutely brilliant. i even signed a form allowing her to do all the form filling etc. for me. One form she sent me was so intrusive to fill in that I phone her and said I cant and don't want to do this any more. after calming me down she said turn to page 5 and where it says state illness I just wrote cancer and that was it, I didn't have to fill in anymore of the highly intrusive form. I also used to get a phone call off her asking me have I received this payment or that payment. If I hadn't she would put the ball in motion and sort it out for me, the phone calls I received from her were not only to check on what I had been paid but also well fair checks on me. I eventually went back to work after about 10 months, but I could not thank  Maggie enough, she was  a fantastic lady with all the help I had. received. 

I hope this is of help to you Mick.

John, that is amazing. I've always believed that most people are prepared to help a stranger if the stramnger makes it clear that they are at a very low. You have to ask for help though as people cannot read minds. And that is so difficult to do so you did so well.

Hello MickG, I'm in a similar place to you and we're all different, but a Gleason score of 6 is definitely low risk category. My Gleason is 7, but I'm also on active surveillance and that means (I was told) that the cancer is at such a stage that it can be caught and treated with 100% success if/when it starts to become a threat.

That's good of course, but only relatively good, not as good as if you'd not got it in the first place; so look after yourself as best you can and ask/talk when you need to, because if mine's anything to go by brains aren't always very good at logic when they hear the C word. I've found the people here are great.

Sean.